


Pacific Fringe

by Chiomi



Category: Fringe (TV), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Dubious Ethics, Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7727698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The kaiju probably aren’t Walter’s fault. Olivia tries very hard to believe this.</p><p>The DOD contracted Massive Dynamic for their ridiculous giant robot plan, though, so the things the pilots go through are definitely Walter’s fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pacific Fringe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [piratekelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratekelly/gifts).



> Timelines are slightly fudged so Etta can be older. Olivia would legit be 6 years older than Stacker, though.

The kaiju probably aren’t Walter’s fault. Olivia tries very hard to believe this.

The DOD contracted Massive Dynamic for their ridiculous giant robot plan, though, so the things the pilots go through are definitely Walter’s fault. The first time she heard the words ‘neural load,’ she looked over at Peter and could see her own horrible premonition echoed back at her. She can’t argue that it’s unnecessary, though, because there are already thousands dead.

She does manage to advocate to keep the testing in-house, and have some of the security handled by the FBI instead of the Army or Massive Dynamic’s internal security.

“We’re Fringe Division,” she says to Broyles. “I’m pretty sure this is the most relevant to our department that it’s possible to be.”

He stares over her shoulder. She doesn’t look back. She’s pretty sure Walter was giving one of the Army-loan kaiju scientists a tour of the lab, and she’d seen his tattoos. She is very, very sure both that she doesn’t want to know what they’re doing now and that Peter will keep a lid on it. “I’ll clear it,” Broyles says. “They’re putting together an international task force, so it might already be out of our hands.”

Olivia smiles tightly, and knows she’s won. “Well, if they cut us out, they lose Walter. Give me to the end of the day, and they’ll either want us off the project completely or they’ll be _happy_  to sign us on.”

Broyles smiles at her, genuinely amused. “I guess you’re going back to being a liaison, Dunham.”

“Whatever it takes, sir,” she says, nodding at him. There’s a clang and excited scientist noises behind her, and she thinks it’s even odds Walter’s showing Newt the Easy-bake oven or the record digitizer. He’d looked like that kind of 90s kid.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Broyles says, and leaves.

Olivia braces herself, and turns around. Peter’s sketching out what looks like an updated version of an immersion tank on a whiteboard while Walter and Newt gesture animatedly. She sighs, and texts Astrid. She hadn’t expected the ball to start rolling quite so quickly on the influx of personnel and data: usually the DOD likes to leisurely cross their Ts and dot their Is even when lives are on the line. She and Peter have gotten so used to going home to their little girl at the end of the day that they don’t even have go-bags with them. Nina has stuff for her and Etta, of course, but Olivia doesn’t remember what’s over there, and doesn’t want to leave it to chance. She asks Astrid to send a couple junior agents for the family go-bags and to bring Etta to Massive Dynamic herself. It’s going to be a sleepover. She hardly thinks Etta’s kindergarten teacher is going to put up a fuss about missing school.

Text sent, she pages Massive Dynamic security. She doesn’t technically hold any position here, but she’s the adoptive daughter of the CEO and the daughter-in-law of the sole owner, and that goes a lot farther than just a badge and a friendly smile. Kevin appears in the lab almost instantly. “Yes, Agent Dunham?”

“I think they’re settling in for the long haul, here, so I just want to make sure we’ve got the space allocated.”

“Ms. Sharp -”

Olivia nods in the agreeable kind of way that makes people shut up. “I know there’ll be storage space for all of the samples, and I assume a communication room to talk to the rest of the task force, and medical suites, but we’re going to need crash space for all of the pilot candidates Walter works on. None of us are going to want them out on the streets until they’ve slept it off.”

Kevin’s been head of security for five years. He’s an ex-Marine, and Olivia assumes he’s seen some incredibly weird tech being here at Massive Dynamic. He doesn’t have exactly the same experience with Walter’s enthusiasm for Class A drugs, though, so he hesitates a moment before nodding. “I’ll set it up. Secure rooms?”

“Secure floor should do it. Thanks, Kevin.” Walter starts shouting her name. “Oh, and he’ll need three immersion tanks and a kilogram of LSD.” She flashes a smile at his bewildered face and turns to Walter.

“Olivia, you shared your body with Belly. Do you think that if you’d had a - a bridge, like we had with the other side, a neutral place, you’d have been able to pilot it together?” Walter looks positively gleeful.

Olivia shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t think that would be the problem so much as the emotional barrier.”

Walter’s glee fades and he looks quizzical. Peter starts nodding. “Yeah, like with the rooftop? You took over, and no one had to go on a drugged Magic School Bus search and rescue mission because we weren’t fighting each other.”

“Exactly,” Olivia says. “And if it’s going to be for an extended period, they’d have to trust each other just as much.”

“Wait,” says Newt, “You two have done this before?”

“Well, there wasn’t a giant robot,” Peter says, “but yeah.”

“Ha! I told Hermann we wouldn’t be the first to have thought of it.”

\--

Three hours later, Astrid ushers in Etta, concern on her face. “There are a lot of Army personnel here.”

“They scared Mr. Foster,” Etta says. “They didn’t want to let me in and he wouldn’t say anything to them and Aunt Astrid had to show them that letter you got from Uncle Phillip  _and_  the one from Grandma Nina.”

Olivia runs her hands down Etta’s hair. “But you’re okay?”

“Yep,” she says, and Olivia has always been impressed by the resilience of her daughter. “Can I go play in my lab?”

“Sure, sweetie,” Olivia says, and kisses the top of Etta’s head. Olivia jerks her head at one of the security guys supervising the installation of one of the immersion tanks, and he obediently trots over. “Can you take Etta up to 62, please? Lab E.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and smiles at Etta. “Would you like to come with me?”

Olivia watches them go, makes sure he’s headed to the elevator. She trusts Nina to have made sure that anyone cleared to work anywhere near Walter would also be someone safe to leave her daugher with, but she doesn’t think she’ll ever stop worrying about her baby. It’s one of the reasons Etta never goes to the covert testing facility that is Massive Dynamic’s in-house daycare, and the reason that the little lab just next to Nina’s office is stocked mostly with computer parts and the kind of chemicals that come in kid-safe chemistry kits - stuff Peter assures her is very hard to make explode. She turns back to Astrid.

“I got the briefing you sent and went over it on the plane. You’re sure about the criteria?”

Olivia raises a hand and waffles it. “I know it’s not quite what the Army’s proposing in pilots, but since this is more about ability to share neural load than individual piloting ability, I’m pretty sure. Once Peter’s done here, I’ll talk to him more about it. Do you think you can sell it?”

Everyone in the Bureau has long stopped underestimating the incredibly varied expertise Astrid’s gleaned from what had initially been termed mad scientist babysitting duty, but working with outside agencies can be a mixed bag. Astrid smiles reassuringly. “We might be new on the project, but I’ve got an honorary PhD in xenobiology and a badge. I can at least get them to listen.”

“Okay. They’ve got the candidates in the medical suites on 47 - I haven’t been keeping track of how many they’re bringing in and how many they’ve washed out, but they should have personnel files for everyone, and all of them are being barracked in New York until we’re done with them.”

\--

As predicted, the first set of tests involves cousins who both ended up as Transport specialists getting drugged to the gills and dropped in immersion tanks with sensors attached to them. Newt - Olivia can’t think of him as Dr. Geiszler - has the kind of wide-eyed awe of a grad student who’s always been under strict supervision from an ethics committee. One of the cousins throws up in the immersion tank, and tests have to stop for the day. Walter and Newt pore over the data as Olivia helps the kids to the crash pads that had been set up on the floor below. The one who hadn’t thrown up won’t stop giggling softly.

When she gets back, Peter’s almost done getting ready to go, leaving Walter with Dr. Lightcap and Newt. “Remember to eat something at some point - there’s a cafeteria, or building security can get whatever delivered. Walter, remember you have a credit card in your left pocket. Don’t make either of them pay. We’ll be back in the morning.”

Peter takes her hand and they get back in the elevator to go up to 62. “So, that went badly,” Peter says conversationally.

“Is any of the data usable?”

“Yeah, and I think it points to what you’ve probably figured from this afternoon - active synch isn’t like interrogating a corpse. We’d probably be better off seeing if any of the remaining cortexiphan subjects are functional and feel like dying for their country.”

The elevator dings open, and Olivia shrugs uncomfortably. “I think the ones who’re still alive deserve their privacy.”

Peter’s silent for just a beat. “Yeah. So, you had Astrid looking at personnel files?”

Olivia nods. “I think under 25 with high empathy scores is probably the first building block. Astrid told me that most of them already fit that criteria, but there’s some guy from the RAF she thinks might be worth making an age exception for. I wanted to talk to you about it, though, since you’ve been hooked up to people. Do you think - well, I know it was a lot harder for you, especially with Mr. Smith, but how much of a role do you think the cortexiphan had?”

The come to a stop outside Etta’s lab, and Olivia peeks in. Nina’s in with her, going over writing up lab reports. Her daughter, she thinks, is going to grow up incredibly scientifically literate and not a little strange. But it’ll be better than growing up alone, with only a bullet for comfort. She and Peter go in, and Etta runs over. Peter crouches so he can catch her and sweep her up. “Hi, honey. Did you have fun with Grandma Nina?”

Etta nods, and puts her head on Peter’s shoulder. “Can we have pizza now?”

Nina dusts off her spotless pants and joins them. “Will you be staying with me, or do you need to be here?”

Olivia smiles at her. “With you, if that’s okay.”

“Of course, Olive. Let me just grab my things, and we can grab Original Ray’s on the way to my place.”

\--

It comes down, of course, to injecting all of the candidates with cortexiphan.

Olivia doesn’t stick around for that part.

There’s a warehouse near the water where they’re working on the robots in question, building frameworks that they’ll be able to take apart for transfer to the West Coast. She and Peter get some weird looks, since they’re the only ones on the warehouse floor not wearing coveralls. As they work their way to the office, there are fewer weird looks but more security checks. The guard on the last door takes one look at Olivia’s credentials and his gaze flies to her face, livid. “You’re the one who decided I’m too old to pilot,” he says, English accent thick with rage.

Olivia blinks, then smooths her face to professionalism. Peter claps the guard on the shoulder as he goes past. “Stacker Pentecost,” Olivia says.

He nods, jaw twitching. “I’m a damn good pilot, and I helped develop this interface.”

Olivia nods, agreeable, and keeps her voice casual. “Interfacing with other people is the problem, not interfacing with the machine. The drug we think will work to make it sustainable long-term has only ever been successfully administered to children. You’re, what, thirty? You probably don’t have enough neuroplasticity left to do anything but die.”

He goes ashen. “Children?”

“Under 25 is our best bet,” Olivia says.

Pentecost’s mouth firms. “I’m still the best pilot of the interface with the jaegers.”

Olivia studies him carefully. She meets a lot of people, and spends a lot of time with some of the most remarkable people in the world. The ones who reshape the world all have an ineffable energy around them, carbonation in a pool. She knows it’s what Phillip sees in her, why she’s given more leeway than would be considered wise if she didn’t get results. She sees it in Pentecost, and sighs. “Even if it works, seizures and stroke are real possibilities.”

“So’s being eaten by Godzilla. Does that mean I’m in?”

“Yes,” she says. “Go to Massive Dynamic this morning so you can be put in the test group.”

He grabs her shoulders and kisses her, suddenly and thoroughly. When he lets go, he grins like a sudden ray of sunlight through a storm. “Thank you! You won’t regret this.” He bounds down the stairs two and three at a time, not even waiting to clear it with his superior.

Olivia pushes through the half-open door.

Peter quirks an eyebrow at her, terribly amused. “Making friends?”

“Astrid’s exception,” she says by way of explanation, and Peter nods.

“Come see Jasper’s plans,” Peter says. “I think that this might actually work.”


End file.
